#randy and benson are queer losers just like me

[cherry-waves66]

okay since my last post about The Passenger 2023 got “hype” and people wanted me write fics for it I’ve been thinking about the small town location-

One of my favorite aspects of the southern gothic sub genre is how it plays with atmosphere. The south is such a visceral experience and feeling, the small town locations, the surrounding houses and worn down grocery marts, the isolated community and the people with their tangible loneliness. Its got this sense of being cut off from the rest of the world that I myself experienced growing up in a rural town. The environment both physical and socially cultural become a character in themselves and this is very tangible throughout The Passenger 2023

But I also love how this experience extends to Benson and Randy. How it sculpts who they are as individuals and how they’ve (very differently) dealt with traumatic events. It’s in the way Randy’s coworkers don’t take his masculinity seriously, targeting him as an outlier. It’s in the way Benson has a shotgun in his trunk and a cabinet full of guns back at his house. It’s in the way Benson calls his mom ‘ma’ and how in those seven or more hours Randy and Benson circle home because they’ve never experienced anywhere else. Wouldn’t really know how to. It’s where they experienced everything bad and good in life. To leave it without a glance back? Well that’s just impossible. Especially considering where Randy and Benson are at in regards to their mental health/over all mentality. Both having not been able to move on or heal from damage caused during childhood, both having been hurt in a space meant to be safe for children.

They each carry this immense amount of guilt for very different reasons and rural town America knows how to nourish shame like none else.